


Wonderland

by afractionof



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 10:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afractionof/pseuds/afractionof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's two AM and you've just walked into Wonderland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

> Gift fic for someone on tumblr who had a bad day.

 

It's two AM and you're not really sure what the fuck is going on. There's light seeping in from under your door and you can still hear the low thrum of music from the living room.

You've been putting it off, venturing out there to see what the hell Bro's up to but this is going a little too far, even for you, and your curiosity is welling up just as much as your mild concern is spiraling out of control.

You can't sleep.

You're worried and you feel like there's a good reason to be because there's a _fucking light_ coming from under your door.

Bro hardly turns on the lights when he takes a shower, let alone when he just decides to fuck around with whatever the shit he's doing.

There's a light and it bothers you and you don't even reach for your own light when you swing your legs off the bed and make your way to the door because there’s already a fucking light or ten out there.

You exit your room, not caring that you're in a pair of ratty shorts and that's it. Usually you'd at least grab a shirt, you know Bro doesn't like looking at the scars on your chest-- especially the ones you got from Jade, even if he doesn't really know where they came from-- but you're a little more focused on figuring what's got his shit all out of whack.

Because really, that's exactly what’s happening here.

This is different. It's a change for the guy that does the same exact thing every damn day and it makes you uncomfortable to see him just flip his routine right the fuck out the window.  Smuppets, you’re used to. Listening to the barely noticeable beats he sometimes mixes late into the middle of the night you can handle, enjoy, even, but the lights are just fucking weird.

You pause when you come to the end of the hall and, for a moment, you're not really sure this is your apartment.

It can't be and if you look like an idiot staring, well, you think you’re entitled to a little bit of shock and awe.

Your living room is covered in old sheets and a lot more chairs that you thought the two of you owned. There's one of those old ankle weights holding the different colored corners to the top of the TV and the ceiling has a little rainbow of thumb tacks sticking out of it. Strings of Christmas lights are hanging down, wrapping around chair legs and going back up to the different corners of your room. The hooks from Christmas are always up and it’s weird to see them being used when it’s so hot outside but that explains the light, at least. You're more concerned with the fact that this just—it’s really fucking cool, actually.

You can see the colors bouncing off the sheets from the yellowish glow of the lights and you bet it looks hells of fucking fantastic from the inside.

And God damn, but where the fuck are you?

You've entered the Twilight Zone filled with the most massive fort you're ever seen and no sign on your Bro except the hat on the kitchen counter and a single shoe next to what you figure is the door to this thing.

You stand there for barely a minute before you realize you’re not really sure why the fuck you're wasting time and go over to the shoe.

You're right. There's a little flap here and when you crawl through you've really got to hand it to your Bro. It's pretty dim, just enough of the light coming through to give it that weird magical feel shit like this always has and the chairs to your sides are covered with sheets too, making it look more like they’re not even there and you’re in some kind of weird crawlspace. He's pretty good at this shit and you move forward, peeking under the next dropped sheet.

Honestly, you're not really sure what you were expecting. The room he’s made isn't all that big but it looks cozy as hell. Bro's sitting in the middle of it, his back to you, in some old ass sweats that have really seen better days and he looks pretty freshly showered. Funny because you didn't hear the water but you'd been a little more concerned with why the fuck there was light coming under you door from your usually black abyss of an apartment.

And you're right, the lights do look amazing. They almost look like stars on the dark covering he used for the ceiling and when you glance around you can see them lighting up the different colored sheets and, fuck, why don't you do this more often?

Crawling into the room, you make sure the sheet is covering the entrance and wiggle over to sit beside him, legs crossed under you. "Yo," you say, looking over at him.

He's quiet, eyes down and when you see his shades are off, you know there's something wrong. Bro doesn't take those things off for much of anything. You're pretty sure he showers with them on and you know for a fact he sleeps with them on-- occasionally, at least. But you just let him sit for now and is that a fucking coloring book?

It is. It's a fucking coloring book and those are god damn crayons.

You don't question it though—much, at least. It's Bro, he can do whatever the fuck he wants and you're actually kind of glad it's not a pile of felt and that poly-stuffing shit.

But when time continues to stretch, pulling the silence along with it, you can't do it.

You can't just sit here and watch him color neatly between the little lines of Disney Princess faces and Flounder's fat mug.

"Okay, dude, what the fuck is up with you today?"

He just shrugs and you feel your lips thin, pursing in annoyance and concern and, shit, he's really weirding you out right now.

You should have known something was up when he didn't come in and immediately drag you to the roof for a Strife.

He'd been away for a bit, took a nice long plane ride up to see Mom Lalonde and bullshit around with her. You've never really understood their particular brand of broship but, you can barely decipher her text messages so you shouldn't really be surprised.

Rose doesn't know what they do and you sure as hell don't go out of your way to ask. You figure they probably just drink and sew smuppets. Bro always takes his sewing machine and enough supplies to build a felt temple and only comes home with half of it. Rose probably has hundreds of the damn things in her house and doesn't even realize it.

But that doesn't really matter because right now Bro is giving Jasmine green hair and that's just wrong.

You can't give her green hair, man, her pants are blue.

"Bro," you try again, leaning a little.

You can feel your face, drawn in probably some shit version of concern but he doesn't even look at you, just sighs and drops the crayon before rubbing his hands over his face.

"Yeah?"

"...you good?"

You sound hesitant and you hate that. How many times has Bro told you to just ask if you're going to fucking ask and not pussy foot around it?

Too fucking many.

He doesn't say anything about it though and for some reason you think that's worse than if he'd just given you his usual shit. "Yep. Decided I'm done being an adult. If you need shit, I'll just write you a check, can find me in here, coloring."

"..." What. The fuck? "...in a fort... coloring Jasmine green. Yeah, right, okay. No, what the fuck, man? What the hell is going on?"

"Nothin', kid, just tired."

"You don't build the Coliseum of forts when you're tired, Bro, you tell me to shut the fuck up for a while and crash where ever the hell you want and that's usually right in my way. It's two in the fucking morning and you're giving the hottest Disney Princess the ugliest seaweed-shit green hair I've ever seen. So, again... what the fuck?"

He sighs and sits back, dragging a pillow out from under one of the sheets to his left and you wonder what else he's got stuffed out of sight but you don't ask.

You probably don't want to know.

But you'll take the pillow he's shoving at you and hug it to your chest when he lies down, settling on his back with his own pillow stuffed under his head.

"Just one of those days."

"You just got back from visiting Mom." And by that, you mean he's usually in a pretty good mood and he knows it.

"Yeah, well, shit happens."

Well, fuck. "...something happen with her?"

He shakes his head. "Nah, Rox is too chill for much to happen with her that doesn’t end in more booze, 'specially if she's been at the hard stuff."

Rox-- you've never heard Bro call her anything other than Mom or Lalonde and it's kind of weird to realize she actually has a name. You're so used to Rose calling her 'Mother' with that tone that even in type you can just feel the sarcastic disdain for the word dripping all over your screen that it's kind of surreal.

She's a pretty cool lady, you've talked to her maybe three times but she's always mailing you guys random shit. You've still got the socks she sent you when you were six and they're still too big but you fucking love them. What's not to love about socks with little red ants giving you shit eating grins?

"Then… what? And don't give me that 'it's just a thing' bullshit because it's two-fucking-AM, Bro. You're sitting in a damn fort... we didn't even make these when I was five, okay? So... we're here, we're doing the thing. We're making the feelings jam happen and just pretend it's not awkward as fuck talking to me."

You don't expect him to look over or for him to cock an eyebrow at you like that and you kind of hate that you just look back.

You’ve got a love hate relationship with his eyes.

They're amber because you can't just call them orange. They're too warm for orange and orange just makes you think of that sticky soda he likes. His eyes aren’t even in the same hemisphere as that nasty shit and you can't compare them. So, amber it is, no matter how much of a douche it makes you feel like for going all soppy and poetic about them.

But, they're expressive as shit. He wears those shades for a reason and you can never decide if you like him looking at you or if it makes you skin crawl because you're pretty sure he's looking right through you, shitty clichés and all.

"It's not awkward talkin' to you, kid," he says simply and you just nod because okay.

Right.

Sure it's not. That's why you do this whole talking deal oh-so-fucking-often.

Right.

You just shrug and clear your throat before gesturing to one of the walls. You can't look away from him and you try not to do be too obvious when he turns first, dropping the eye contact and you feel like you can relax a little. "So talk."

His jaws tighten, the muscles in his cheeks tensing for a split second, and when he crosses his arms you feel an odd sense of victory.

He's going to do it. He’s going to talk to you.

"Airport security— worse than normal. Can you believe I had some little shit ask me what the fuck a sewing machine was? Jesus, it’s like they’re bones in some dino exhibit now days. Then the lady behind the counter looked at me like sewing was for little old bats and girls and I've never seen a dumber dude than the one that looked at me like poly-fill was the devil. Fucking dumbass."

When he huffs out a little breath it's so fucking hard not to laugh you think you might choke on your stomach.

He's upset and it's not the time and, God, you know there's more to this but the way he starts with some shit is pretty priceless.

Bro's a wall. He's solid, always sturdy... and he gets in a twist over some of the littlest shit. Admittedly, you know that it's a simple case of the straw that broke the camel's back but it's funny-- how he says stuff, his tone, how fucking plain annoyed he is by some asshole thinking he shouldn't sew. He's so impassive that moments like these are the ones you live for, potentially awkward as fuck or not.

He's talking to you and he could be talking about ponies for all the fuck's you give, as long as it's you.

"Sat around for three hours, had to piss like mad, finally got to get off the damn plane that wasn't fuckin' goin' anywhere and scared the shit outta some lady sittin' beside me. Cal jumped out of my bag, into her lap, never seen a broad so damn white before." His lips twitch and you bury yours in the pillow in an attempt to keep quite. Cal's creepy, so you understand, but you've got to give the little dude some props for giving Bro a good laugh after all of that. "Then one of the smuppets Rox made fell out, guess she shoved it in my backpack when I wasn't lookin'. Woman's sneaky as fuck, kid, don't give me that look. Landed right on some guy's head, face full of plush rump."

Your shoulders are shaking and so are Bro's and you know without him saying it that, by that point, he'd just started laughing. Hell, he probably laughed right in the guy's face and didn't even bother apologizing.

You can just see it too, some poor S.O.B in a business suit and face full of felt ass. He was probably scandalized, utterly fucking scandalized. 

God, you can't help it.

Your eyes are closed and your arms are tight around the pillow as you laugh into it but it's okay because you can hear him laughing right along with you. It's kind of quiet, more so than the normal chuckle you get out of him once in a while, but it's full in a weird way and pretty damn bright, despite how low it is.

That's something you want to hear again and you tip your head, looking over at him so you can remember this; how the corners of his eyes bunch together, his lopsided smile, lips just barely parted to let that laugh out.

It's pretty close to perfection and, honestly, you're not sure you'll ever find anything better.

And right now, you don't even bother slamming the breaks on those thoughts. You don't really care. It's two AM, you're sitting in a pile of sheets and chairs and it's gorgeous.

It's absolutely. Fucking. Gorgeous.

And soft and just right. It's just right and you can't even be mad about the light coming under your door anymore because without it you'd be missing this—being here with Bro.

Bro, who made his own fucking Wonderland in your living room and you're getting to see it, ugly coloring book and all. You're getting to be a part of this after you didn't want to do much more than shut out the light and go to sleep, after ignoring that you knew something was up until you couldn't stand it anymore.

"I'm sorry." The words are out of your mouth without so much as a breath of hesitation, a little muffled against the pillow and you just shrug when he glances at you, silently questioning what the fuck that was about. "...I knew-- that something was up, with you, I mean."

You don't say that you should have come out sooner. You don't have to because you can tell that he knows in the way that he sighs and shakes his head.

"Don't," he tells you. "Not your job to take care of that shit."

"Yeah, I know. Doesn't make it any less shitty."

He doesn't say anything, just pats the space next to his pillow and you take the hint, dropping yours to the floor and stretching out next to him.

You hear him shift around and some of the lights flicker off with a little click, one of those turn wheels that reminds you of hot chocolate and red wrapping paper. He sets a single string of white ones to blink somewhere off to the side and there's another little snap before a different set comes to life, hanging above you and showering the sheet in multi-colored spots.

You get him-- you understand.

Bro's been taking care of you for a long time, watching out for your ass and teaching you all the shit you'll ever need to know and then some. He's there for you even if you don't go crying to him over every little thing anymore and you know he's got your back.

But sometimes you feel like you don't really live up to your side of that whole deal.

He doesn't talk to you too much, at least about the stuff that’s eating at him, and when he does it's usually about little shit like this but, over the years, you've gotten a little better at reading between the lines. That's all you've really got, after all. He doesn't give you much to work with but you can see it more than anything else, probably better than anyone else.

He gets tired, more than just being sleepy but the thing you hate the most is how obvious it is that he thinks he fucked something up somewhere along the line.

You know he gets upset over this 'little' shit because it's stuff he enjoys. He's just like everyone else in that respect and it makes you angry just to think about people, even kids or those that don't mean to, making comments about how he's not the type for this or the right person for that, how he shouldn't like the shows that he does or wear the shades that are always present, how he should just grow up.

You hate them for making him feel bad about himself because you've always seen him as this fountain of 'fuck you', the guy that does what he wants when he wants to and doesn't care what anyone else says.

And he is in a way, but in a lot of others, you can see how it wears on him, making him contradict himself in a way you don’t think is good at all.

Because it's the little things that really eat away at Bro. But, it's also the little things that really lift him up and you know that's why he doesn't say anything when you slide your hand over and lace your fingers loosely in his.

Neither of you are going to break this silence and that's cool with you. It's not uncomfortable, whether other people understand it or not. It's just how you do things and you know that Bro's just as content as you are, flat out on the floor at two AM doing nothing more than staring at a sheet under Christmas lights in the middle of June.

It's not even a question anymore. You'll never find anything better than this, better than him and that’s okay because you won’t be wasting your time looking when you’ve got everything you could ever want right here.

 

 


End file.
